“And you have my number, Gong,” Chen said. “Call me if you learn anything about Fei. I usually stay up late. I’m taking the train back to Shanghai in the morning.”
Chen had decided to come on the spur of the moment, and while he hadn’t expected miracles, the trip to Wuxi had been a disappointment.
After dinner, Huang drove him to the hotel.
“Call me if there’s anything you want me to do,” Huang repeated as he started the car. “I know you can always pull off a masterstroke.”
How there could be anything like a masterstroke from him? Chen wondered.
The hotel wasn’t fancy, but it was located close to the lake. Nothing about the neighborhood seemed even vaguely familiar. When he got the room key, Chen asked the front desk for a map of the area, though it was too late for him to go out. Then it hit him.
The hotel was close to Shanshan’s dorm. Huang had told him at the restaurant that she was still there. That was why Huang had picked this hotel.
Only he was in no mood to visit Shanshan tonight. He’d heard, since his last trip to Wuxi, that she was still single but was applying to study in UK. What was the point seeing her while he was in the midst of all this trouble?
Back in his room, he checked the train schedule for the morning. There was a fast train leaving for Shanghai at eight thirty. He dialed the front desk and asked them to book a ticket for him.
He felt tired, yet his mind was far from ready to take a break. He didn’t want to start working in the hotel room, which struck him as stuffy, so he changed his mind about going out. He left the hotel and walked over to the lake.
The lake looked dark green under the starlight. Here and there, he could still see patches of algae. A lone waterbird flapped off into the darkness.
Perching on a rock by the waterfront, he went over what had happened that day, making notes in his memory. It had been a long day, but he’d succeeded only in exhausting himself, like so many times before, without getting anywhere.
Afterward, he was barely aware that he had started walking again, absentmindedly, along the shore, following an unexpected turn, heading toward the dorm despite his earlier decision. The dorm building appeared little changed, silhouetted against the night. He came to an abrupt stop, thinking he recognized a lit window in the distance, before he walked into a deserted pavilion by the shore.
He also thought he recognized the pavilion with its antiquated vermilion-painted balustrade and white stone-topped bench. It was here that Shanshan had told him an anecdote about when she’d first moved into the dorm. It was quite late, the darksome water lapping against the shore under the moonlight. It would be his last chance to go and visit. No one knew what would befall him tomorrow. Reflexively, he reached for the napkin with the number on it…
But he grabbed his vibrating phone instead. It was after ten, he noticed, glancing at the time before pressing the accept button.
“I had to call you this evening.” It was Peiqin. “Yu was suspended from the police force for leaking information about Liang to the press without first reporting it to Party Secretary Li. They questioned whether you had conspired with him, controlling him behind the scenes.”
So Yu’s investigation had rattled them. The hastiness of the move suggested that that Li and the people above him were responding helter-skelter. But was it just about Liang? Chen hadn’t thought Yu would last long as the head of the Special Case Squad. Promoting him was nothing but a gesture. However, that Yu had been removed so quickly was a surprise.
Peiqin went on to give a detailed account of the interview Yu had conducted with Wei before his suspension.
“Yu has a feeling that she knows something about Liang’s murder,” Peiqin concluded. “She is heartbroken, but she chose not to say anything.”
“So Liang may have been a scapegoat of some kind. Killed and buried under the waste, lest he speak out against somebody high above him.”
“We’ve also learned that someone in Beijing pointed his finger at the people in Shanghai, recommending you as the one to investigate the recent high-speed train incident. Then the city government arranged for you to be removed from your position in the police bureau. That’s unverified, of course. It comes from a so-called ‘hostile’ Web site.” Peiqin then added, “Yu also went to the law firm for Liang’s company, a prestigious one for which Kai is a special advisor.”
“They felt that to be another strike at them, I believe.”
Stories on the Internet may not be reliable, but Yu’s move must have been in the right direction. What would be next move for the ex-chief inspector?
Wei might know something. But clearly she also knew it was useless for her to talk, particularly now that Yu was suspended and possibly under surveillance. A push in that direction no longer seemed sensible.
“There’s something else,” Peiqin continued. “About the American. We found some more info online…”
“We?” It was the second time Peiqin had used the plural pronoun this evening. He was worried about Yu, who had enough trouble already.
“Your friend, another filial son, came to the restaurant for our noodles, so we compared notes regarding our wall-climbing efforts. Strangely, the American’s death has become a topic of conversation on various Web sites, not just in Chinese but in other languages, too.”
Melong, it seemed, had joined forces with Peiqin.
“Here’s a short bio of the dead American. His name is Daniel Martin. He came to Shanghai after having been a student at a college in Beijing. That was more than a decade ago. He was clever and industrious and took on all kinds of odd jobs. He was a representative for an American company, consulted on business opportunities in China, dabbled a little in the export-import business, and at one point, even ‘played’ as a ‘special CFO’ for a textile company, making occasional appearances to show off the strength of their joint ventures. Anyway, he muddled along like so many other expatriates, with no specific skill or large amount of capital. Then he suddenly seemed to have made a huge fortune. He bought properties in both Beijing and Shanghai, and he married a Chinese ex-model. He set up a consulting office in Shanghai, and with the local housing market on fire, he successfully brought various multinational corporations into the city-he acquired government-owned land for them through his connections. In addition to his consulting office, he apparently had a side business helping the children of Chinese officials study abroad. Before his sudden death in Sheshan, he was said to be a healthy man, rarely drinking or smoking.”
“That’s quite comprehensive. Thank you, Peiqin.”
“But we have no idea whether all this is relevant or will be useful.”
Chen already knew the death of Daniel Martin was suspicious. Martin was the very reason Chen was in Wuxi, tracking down the local cop who secured the scene of Martin’s death. But the Party might do anything and everything to protect its interests when a potential international scandal was involved. He decided not to tell Peiqin he was currently in Wuxi instead of Suzhou.
After the prolonged phone call, he lit another cigarette. He needed time to digest this latest information, and he had an acute headache even before he started.
It was a little chilly at this hour of the night. He couldn’t help looking over at the dorm building once again. In the distance, the solitary window was still lit.
There was no walking back into that favorite poem of his: “Such stars, but it’s not last night, / for whom you stand against the wind and dew?”
His phone rang again. It was not a night for poetry.
“Are you still up, Chief Inspector?” It was Gong.
“Yes.”
“Can I come over to the hotel?”
“Well, actually, I’m at a deserted pavilion two or three blocks east of the hotel.”